Charles Mercer contacted police at 4:12 that afternoon.
Not Arthur.
Not Victor.
Police.
He called from a pay phone outside a closed gas station seventy miles north of the city.
By the time officers arrived, he was gone.
But he left something.
A small storage key taped beneath the receiver.
And a note.
Harris read it to us.
If Arthur reaches the locker first, burn everything before you let him take it.
Below that was a storage-unit number.
No signature.
None needed.
Police reached the facility within twenty minutes.
The unit was registered under Peter Mercer’s name.
Peter had been dead for years.
Inside were four boxes.
One locked metal case.
And a blue notebook wrapped in plastic.
Miriam Vale identified it by video from the hospital.
“That’s Thomas’s.”
Harris called me as evidence technicians began photographing every page.
“Is it complete?”
“Appears to be.”
“Arthur?”
“No sign.”
“Charles?”
“Still missing.”
“Then he wanted police to find it.”
“Yes.”
“Why now?”
“Probably because Arthur returned.”
“Or because Charles is dying.”
Harris paused.
“What makes you say that?”
“Old men do strange things when time runs out.”
Victor had started confessing only after his system collapsed.
Maybe Charles was doing the same.
“Could be.”
“What’s in the book?”
“Handwritten records from Thomas Vale’s last year at Carter Industrial.”
“Northstar?”
“A lot.”
“Arthur?”
“Yes.”
“Tell me something.”
Harris hesitated.
Then gave me what he could.
“Vale believed Northstar was not originally a blackmail archive.”
“What was it?”
“A defensive archive.”
I almost laughed.
“Another protective system that became a weapon.”
“Something like that.”
“Explain.”
“According to Vale, Victor created Northstar after realizing Arthur kept private records on everyone.”
“So Victor copied Arthur’s material.”
“Yes.”
“To protect himself.”
“And the company.”
“Still leverage.”
“Yes.”
“Then Evelyn found out.”
“Eventually.”
“And used it?”
“Vale thought she did.”
“What about Arthur?”
“He believed Northstar had been destroyed after his fake death.”
“Until when?”
“Vale discovered signs Arthur had learned otherwise.”
“When?”
“Months before the bridge crash.”
That mattered.
“Did Vale tell Victor?”
“Yes.”
“What did Victor do?”
“According to the notebook, very little.”
Of course.
“What did Vale write?”
Harris paraphrased.
Victor wanted to handle Arthur privately.
I closed my eyes.
Twelve years later, we were all still paying for that sentence.
“Did Vale know Arthur was alive?”
“Yes.”
“Did he meet him?”
“Yes.”
My skin tightened.
“When?”
“Twice.”
“Where?”
“One meeting at the research property.”
“The original Northstar site.”
“Yes.”
“Second?”
“North Mercer Bridge.”
I went still.
Before the crash.
“Why?”
“Arthur requested it.”
“What happened?”
“Vale wrote that Arthur offered him money to leave Carter and stop investigating.”
“Vale refused.”
“Yes.”
“What did Arthur say?”
Harris paused.
“Vale wrote one sentence in quotes.”
“Tell me.”
“‘Everybody eventually chooses which truth they can afford.’”
That sounded like Arthur.
“What did Vale write after?”
“That Arthur was wrong because some truths become more expensive when buried.”
I liked Thomas Vale without ever meeting him.
Perhaps because he eventually did what everyone else failed to do.
Write things down.
Outside the system.
“What is on the final page?”
Silence.
I noticed.
“Harris.”
“It’s unusual.”
“Tell me.”
“The final page is dated the day before Vale died.”
“What does it say?”
“Mostly names.”
“Whose?”
“Arthur. Evelyn. Victor. Daniel. Charles.”
The circle.
“And?”
“Several others.”
“Officials?”
“Yes.”
“Police?”
“Yes.”
“Doctors?”
“Yes.”
“Kent?”
“Yes.”
Even then.
“What else?”
“At the bottom, Vale wrote: ‘If Bell learns I copied the master index, give it to M.’”
“M?”
My mind went immediately to Marianne.
She had received the notebook.
“Marianne?”
Harris answered.
“She says no.”
Marianne was sitting across from me.
Her face had already gone pale.
“What did Thomas tell you when he gave you the notebook?”
She thought carefully.
“He said if Charles failed, someone named Mae would know what to do.”
“Mae?”
“Yes.”
“You never mentioned that.”
“I had forgotten.”
“Who is Mae?”
“I don’t know.”
Harris spoke.
“The final line says: ‘Mae has the index.’”
The person Arthur feared.
Not a prosecutor.
Someone holding the map to Northstar’s people.
“Who is Mae?”
“We’re working it.”
“Employee?”
“No obvious Carter employee by that name in that period.”
“Alias?”
“Likely.”
Victor joined by secure call when he heard the name.
He looked shocked.
“You know her.”
He said nothing.
“Victor.”
“Yes.”
“Who?”
“Mae Bell.”
The surname made my chest tighten.
“Arthur’s wife?”
Victor shook his head.
“His sister.”
Claire had never mentioned an aunt.
“Alive?”
“I don’t know.”
“How old?”
“Early seventies now.”
“What did she do?”
“Accounting.”
“For Arthur?”
“For everyone.”
“Meaning?”
“She maintained records before Northstar.”
“The master index.”
Victor nodded.
“Probably.”
“Why did Arthur fear her?”
“Because Mae believed records should survive the people who created them.”
I almost smiled at the irony.
Arthur used documentation as control.
His sister apparently believed documentation belonged to truth.
“What happened between them?”
“Arthur tried to destroy old files.”
“Mae stopped him?”
“She copied them.”
“When?”
“Late nineties.”
“Then?”
“She disappeared.”
Another disappearance.
“Arthur?”
Victor shook his head.
“No.”
“How do you know?”
“Because he spent years looking for her.”
That was different.
“Voluntary disappearance.”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“I never knew.”
“Charles?”
“Maybe.”
“Thomas?”
“Apparently.”
“So Vale somehow knew Mae was alive.”
“Yes.”
“Did you?”
“No.”
“Did Evelyn?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Did Arthur know Vale had found her?”
Victor’s face tightened.
“If he did, Thomas would have been in greater danger than I realized.”
Greater danger.
Still passive language.
“You realized enough.”
Victor looked down.
“Yes.”
“Did Mae create Northstar?”
“No.”
“But she created the index Arthur later copied.”
“Yes.”
“Could she unlock Northstar?”
“Not technically.”
“Then why does she matter?”
“Because the index maps people to aliases, accounts, medical records, front companies.”
A translation key.
Without it, Northstar might be a mountain of coded material.
With it, every protected identity could become visible.
Arthur wanted the archive.
Mae had the map.
“What did Thomas mean ‘Mae has the index’?”
Victor shook his head.
“Original paper index, maybe.”
“Where?”
“No idea.”
“Charles?”
“He may know.”
Again Charles.
Every path narrowed toward him.
“What about Claire?”
I asked Ruiz to connect her if possible.
Singapore investigators approved a brief follow-up.
Claire’s face appeared.
When I said Mae, she stopped breathing.
“You know her.”
“My aunt.”
“Alive?”
Claire hesitated.
“I think so.”
“When did you last see her?”
“Seven years ago.”
Everyone leaned forward.
“Where?”
“Phnom Penh.”
The destination Lauren had been booked to fly to.
Cold spread through me.
“What?”
“My aunt has lived in Cambodia under another name for years.”
“Why?”
“To stay away from my father.”
“Does Arthur know?”
“He suspects the region. Not the exact place.”
“Then why was Lauren’s itinerary to Phnom Penh?”
Claire’s face changed.
“I didn’t know it was.”
“Bell Strategic has a document center there.”
“Yes.”
“Near Mae?”
“I don’t know.”
“Coincidence?”
“No.”
She did not even pretend.
“What name does Mae use?”
Her lawyer objected.
Investigators negotiated.
Finally Claire answered.
“May Lennox.”
Mae.
May.
Close enough to remember.
Different enough to hide.
“What does she do?”
“Runs a small records consultancy.”
“Of course.”
“Does she have the index?”
“I never saw it.”
“Does Arthur believe she does?”
“Yes.”
“Did Thomas Vale contact her?”
Claire looked surprised.
“I don’t know.”
“Charles?”
“Yes.”
There it was.
“Recently?”
“Years ago.”
“How often?”
“Occasionally.”
“Why?”
“To keep her informed when my father’s network became active again.”
Charles had not only been quietly resisting Arthur.
He maintained a warning channel to Mae.
“What is in the master index?”
“Names my father never wanted connected.”
“Current powerful people?”
“Yes.”
“Crimes?”
“Yes.”
“Enough to destroy Arthur?”
Claire gave a small, bitter smile.
“My father has never been afraid of prison as much as he has been afraid of Aunt Mae deciding to publish.”
That was the person he feared.
Not because she could arrest him.
Because she could remove his control over information.
Arthur survived by deciding who knew what.
Mae could make everyone know.
“Why hasn’t she?”
Claire’s expression became complicated.
“Because publication would hurt innocent people too.”
“Families?”
“Yes.”
“Victims?”
“Yes.”
“People forced into cooperating?”
“Yes.”
That made sense.
Truth could expose.
It could also wound.
Mae apparently understood the difference between keeping evidence and dumping it.
“What does Arthur want from her now?”
“The index.”
“Why now?”
“Because Northstar is compromised.”
“He needs to know which records law enforcement can decode.”
“Yes.”
“And which people he can still pressure.”
“Yes.”
“Does Lauren know Mae’s identity?”
Claire looked uncertain.
“She may have learned it from Arthur.”
“Why send Lauren to Phnom Penh?”
“Maybe to find her.”
My stomach tightened.
Lauren had impersonated me.
Failed.
Then was prepared to travel to Cambodia.
Perhaps the trip had not been escape.
Maybe it had been reassignment.
Find Mae.
Recover the index.
Then Arthur changed plans and moved Lauren to the Northstar property.
“Why?”
Claire thought.
“If Lauren hesitated.”
“She became a liability.”
“Yes.”
“Dr. Kent was at the property.”
“Probably because Lauren needed to be controlled.”
“With drugs.”
Claire said nothing.
I looked at Harris’s camera feed.
“Find Mae before Arthur does.”
“We’re contacting international partners.”
“Do not use Bell Strategic.”
“Obviously.”
“Do not use Carter people.”
“Agreed.”
“Does Mae know what’s happening?”
“Unknown.”
Claire interrupted.
“She will.”
“How?”
“Charles.”
“You said Charles is missing.”
“He has ways.”
Claire looked almost confident.
“My father taught him too well.”
That sentence stayed with me.
Arthur had created skilled people.
Then expected permanent loyalty.
Maybe that was his deepest flaw.
He taught everyone how systems worked.
Some eventually used that knowledge against him.
Ruiz received an update from the research property.
They found another room below the residential wing.
Not containment.
Archives.
Mostly empty.
One object remained on a metal table.
A photograph.
Arthur and Mae.
Young.
Standing outside Carter Industrial’s first office.
On the back, handwritten:
The first person who keeps the record owns the truth.
Arthur’s handwriting.
Below it, in another hand:
Only until someone makes a copy.
Mae.
Sibling rivalry reduced to a philosophy that had shaped decades of crimes.
Then Harris said evidence technicians had found a hidden compartment inside Thomas Vale’s blue notebook.
A thin piece of paper.
One address.
No name.
Foreign.
Phnom Penh.
Claire confirmed it was near the neighborhood where Mae once lived.
Thomas had preserved the route.
Charles had preserved Thomas’s notebook.
Arthur had spent twelve years trying to find both.
Now the investigation finally had the same address.
But there was one problem.
The date written beside it was seven years old.
Mae might be long gone.
Then my temporary phone rang.
Unknown international number.
Everyone froze.
Harris told me not to answer.
I looked at the screen.
Cambodia country code.
I answered.
A woman’s voice spoke.
Older.
Calm.
“You don’t know me.”
I said nothing.
“But I know what Arthur did to you.”
My skin went cold.
“Mae?”
A brief pause.
“May is safer.”
Harris began recording.
I held the phone tighter.
“How did you get this number?”
“Charles.”
“Where is he?”
“Alive.”
“Is he with you?”
“No.”
“Where?”
“Moving.”
“From Arthur?”
“Yes.”
“Do you have the index?”
Another pause.
“Yes.”
Everyone in the room stopped moving.
“Arthur is looking for you.”
“I know.”
“He may already know where you are.”
“He has been trying to know where I am for twenty years.”
“What do you want?”
Her answer came without hesitation.
“To finish something Thomas Vale started.”
“What?”
“To make sure no one gets to own the truth anymore.”
Click here to continue reading: PART 31: Mae Offered to Release Arthur’s Master Index, but One Name Inside It Forced Victor to Admit Northstar Had Begun With a Death
The Night My Husband Carried a Welding Torch Downstairs and Told Me Nobody Would Ever Come Looking
Part 30 of 40
